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Jeffrey Spender
Jeffrey Frank Spender was a Special Agent within the FBI. He was briefly assigned, with Special Agent Diana Fowley, to the X-files when they reopened in 1998. (TXF: "The Beginning") Spender was the son of the Cigarette Smoking Man, and worked under the guidance of his father to undermine Fox Mulder. His mother, Cassandra Spender, was the first successful alien/human hybrid, part of a project conducted by the Smoking Man that spanned at least 25 years. Early Life At a young age, Spender was left without his mother after she was taken for a prolonged period of time. During this time, Spender was raised along with Samantha Mulder by his father in California. (TXF: "Closure") When his mother was returned, Spender went back to be being in her care, with his father leaving the family when Spender was 12. During this time, an impressionable young Spender was unwittingly convinced by his mother that he too had been abducted, and even went as far as to undergo regressive hypno-therapy, where he described an alien encounter. (TXF: "Patient X") Working at the FBI Early Career & Rise After joining the FBI in his twenties, Spender had a meteoric rise through the ranks that was, unbeknownst to him, due to the connections of his father. He first came into contact with Mulder and the X files, already well aware of their reputation, when he was assigned to the case regarding the re-appearance of his mother, Cassandra Spender. Spender attempted to dissuade Mulder and Scully from becoming involved in any way with her, using his hypnotheraphy tape as a cause in point as to the persuasive nature of his mother's apparent "delusions". He tried to help her despite his skepticism towards her claims, which ultimately proved unsuccessful. When Cassandra was taken again, Spender blamed Scully for the failure to protect her, furious at her when he found out that she was at the bridge when she was taken and assuming she had taken Cassandra there. During this time he received letters from his father, who was retired in Canada following an attempt on his life, which he spurned and sent back to him unopened. (TXF: "Patient X", "The Red and the Black") Gibson Praise Case When a murder took place during a chess tournament, Spender was placed in charge of the investigation, and deliberately excluded Mulder and Scully from the case. Despite this, they became involved, and quickly learned that it was in fact an attempt on the life of eight year old Gibson Praise. Much to Spender's chagrin, the pair took a pivotal role in the attempt to find his would be killers. He was assigned to work with Diana Fowley during the case. During the investigation, Spender held the assassin in jail without food or water. Mulder went to speak with him, which Spender objected to but didn't prevent. Spender was approached at the FBI Headquarters Car Park by the Cigarette Smoking Man, who told him that he had a promising future and that he could help him advance. Before their conversation could be concluded, Mulder interrupted, warning Spender to the danger he posed. With his actions now controlled by his father, Spender abused his position to ensure that Gibson was captured by his father, with no direct evidence to suggest this, while the assassin was killed in prison by a gunman. However, Mulder appeared to know Spender's involvement and attacked him in the office, having shown his distrust of him prior. An angry Spender told Mulder that he would see to it that his career was ended. After this, CSM entered Mulder's office and set fire to his collection of X files. (TXF: "The End") Assignment to the X-Files Following the destruction of the X files from the last 6 years, Mulder and Scully were re-assigned while Spender was put on the newly modified X files, along with Diana Fowley. For the majority of his time in the FBI, Spender did not believe in the supernatural, and gravely disagreed with Mulder on all things, making his position completely unproductive. Skinner once commented to him that he had made absolutely no progress on the X-files. (TXF: "The Beginning", "Triangle", "Terms of Endearment") Upon the return of Cassandra Spender in 1999, Jeffrey was alerted by his father that a faceless alien had killed and assumed the identity of a Syndicate member. The CSM charged Spender with killing the impostor and provided to him a gimlet weapon. However, Spender failed his task - which was then carried out successfully by Alex Krycek. Stunned by his first encounter with an alien, he was 'reassured' by a manipulative Krycek who let slip that his father was responsible for the experiments done on his mother, and that he was in charge of the whole operation. (TXF: "Two Fathers") Spender had a heated debate with his father, and said that he would not be able to do anything while CSM kept him on stalling Fox Mulder. The CSM replied disgustedly "You pale to Fox Mulder!". Turning his back on his father, Spender attempted to rescue Cassandra from Fort Marlene, but only found a traumatised Marita Covarrubias, who claimed she could help him find her. However, the two were left trapped in the medical facility after Krycek spurned a chance to release them. During this time, the Syndicate were tricked and ambushed by alien rebels, who immolated them along with Cassandra. Realising the full implications of what had happened, Spender worked to get Mulder and Scully assigned back to the X Files. While in his office, he was approached by his father, who had escaped the killing at the airbase. After a brief conversation, the CSM shot Spender - his own son - in the face. (TXF: "One Son") Post-FBI However, Spender survived. In 2002 a disfigured man has broken into the X-files where he attacked John Doggett before eventually being apprehended by him. The man has assumed the identity of Daniel Miller, and has claimed that he got into the FBI building using the keycard given to him by Fox Mulder. Scully was called to talk to the man. She then ran medical tests to determine the nature of the man's burns. He claimed that he was looking for some of the X-files that Mulder told him about that somehow related to his injuries that he claimed to have come from the remnants of a government conspiracy. Meanwhile agents Doggett and Reyes have theorised that the man is no other than Mulder himself. Scully took his blood and send to the lab. It was a positive match. Skinner was skeptical, but Doggett and Reyes were sure it was Mulder and for a while Scully herself believed that. However, after "Mulder" injected something into baby William, he was put back into the interrogation room after a brief chase in which Doggett apprehended "Mulder". Scully talked to him, and "Mulder" revealed to her that he was in fact Jeffrey Spender. This explained the nature of the DNA match (as Spender was Mulder's half-brother), and how he got in the FBI building. He confessed that he hasn't seen Mulder, and that what he injected the boy with was done so to protect the boy and to make him "normal". The nurse who examined the baby earlier said that he was perfectly fine. "William" Some time later, Spender has testified for Mulder after he was convicted of infiltrating the government facility and killing Knowle Rohrer. "The Truth" Appendices Appearances *''The X-Files: **"Patient X" (Season 5) **"The Red and the Black" **"The End" **"The Beginning" (Season 6) **"Triangle" **"Terms of Endearment" **"Two Fathers" **"One Son" **"William" (Season 9) **"The Truth" Additional Reference *TXF: "Closure" (Season 7) Background Check Character Creation & Casting jokes with Mulder actor David Duchovny.]] Jeffrey Spender was played by actor Chris Owens. In episodes of ''The X-Files, Owens had previously guest-starred as the Young Cigarette Smoking Man in both "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" and "Demons", as well as The Great Mutato in "The Post-Modern Prometheus". Each of these portrayals influenced the creation of the character Jeffrey Spender; Owens' performance as the monster in "The Post-Modern Prometheus" impressed both Chris Carter and Mulder actor David Duchovny so, after Duchovny recommended to Carter that Owens be brought back to the series as soon as possible, Carter (thinking much along the same lines) took advantage of Owens' Cigarette Smoking Man heritage to create the character of Jeffrey Spender especially for the actor. ( ) Due to Carter's and Duchovny's belief that Owens had done such a good job of portraying The Great Mutato, Owens was cast in the role of Jeffrey Spender without having to audition. Carter would later comment on how the production crew's belief in Owens as an actor had influenced the casting when Carter stated, "I think it went a long way toward making our choice an easy one." ("The Red and the Black" audio commentary) Owens was first informed by his agent that The X-Files production crew might want to bring the actor on as a regular. After his appearance in "The Post-Modern Prometheus", Owens was at a local movie theater to watch a film and, while ordering a martini in a bar next door, he heard someone say in his ear, I didn't know they served two-headed guys here. " Owens turned to see that it was Chris Carter who had spoken. Carter shook the actor's hand and asked Owens if he had 'heard the good news', which was when the actor knew that a regular role for him on The X-Files was confirmed. (The Complete X-Files: Behind the Series, the Myths and the Movies, Resist or Serve: The Official Guide to ''The X-Files, volume 4'') Owens regarded the fact that he didn't have to audition for the part of Jeffrey Spender as a great privilege and the most substantial one he had been granted, up to that point in his acting career. (Resist or Serve: The Official Guide to ''The X-Files, volume 4'') in a scene from "The End" (the final episode of Season 5) that features Jeffrey Spender.]] Season 6 Appearances As the fifth season's production period entered its final months, rumors began to circulate – especially among The X-Files Vancouver crew members – about the future of the series, particularly concerning whether the show would be moving to Los Angeles for its sixth season and whether the new recurring character of Jeffrey Spender was planned (in case David Duchovny cut back his commitment to the series) to become a replacement for Duchovny's character of Mulder – either as a part-time or fully-fledged substitute. Other, contradictory rumors that Owens heard were that either he or Duchovny would appear in only eight episodes of the sixth season and that his casting as Jeffrey Spender was a sign that the series would either be leaving Vancouver or staying there. According to the actor himself, he always knew that Duchovny would not be leaving the series but only discovered that The X-Files would indeed be moving to Los Angeles when the official announcement was made. (Resist or Serve: The Official Guide to ''The X-Files, volume 4'') episode "Triangle" in which the Nazi Spender pulls a gun on the 1930s Scully.]] The Nazi Spender's fight scene with Mulder in "Triangle" necessitated the creation of a mock-up short-wave radio, as the production crew did not want to use a real vintage radio due to the hazard of actors Chris Owens and David Duchovny bumping into it, during filming. ( ) This fight sequence also incorporated the use of doubles to represent the Nazi Spender and his opponent. ("Triangle" audio commentary) The scene in which the Nazi Spender pulls a gun on the 1930s Scully for angrily ordering him to stop killing innocent civilians is, according to Chris Carter, "a sort of allusion to the earlier scene where Scully had told Spender what to do." Another similarity between the two relationships has each Spender being likened to a weasel by Scully; Agent Spender is told by the modern Scully, "Don't even think about trying to weasel me," and the Nazi Spender is shouted at by the 1930s Scully (during her protest), "Listen to me, you little weasel." ("Triangle" audio commentary) Shortly after the airing of "Terms of Endearment" in January 1999, Owens started to notice strange reactions from people on the streets of Los Angeles and assumed their odd expressions were those of annoyance with the Spender character and/or the fact he had destroyed evidence in that episode. One day, a particularly aggravated male fan of the series shook his finger at Owens and just said, "Paper shredder!" (The End and the Beginning: The Official Guide to ''The X-Files, volume 5'') According to Owens, he first learned of Spender's seeming demise in "One Son" via the usual way – when Chris Carter phoned the actor to discuss his latest script – and, upon Carter telling him that Jeffrey Spender would make an heroic exit from the series' story arc, Owens questioned himself about this news as he was slightly unable to believe that he was leaving the series so soon. Apparently, the news of Spender's departure from the series was confirmed for him shortly thereafter, however, when he received the episode's script. (The Complete X-Files: Behind the Series, the Myths and the Movies) Langly actor Dean Haglund, claiming he was repeating Owens' account of having first learned of Spender's fate in "One Son", once recounted a different story. According to Haglund, "The script came, "One Son" came, with a couple of pages missing. And those pages were what happens to Agent Spender. So Chris Carter calls Chris Owens and they're talking on the phone and he goes, 'Listen, I don't want you to be upset, but you get shot in this episode, but they don't find a body, so you may come back.' ... He hangs up the phone, and silently, under the door, slips the actual scene where he gets shot. It's just quietly slipped under his door, like the courier was just listening at the door for Chris to tell him before he actually gives him the information. And then he just looks at it and thinks, 'Oh my God, I'm in an ''X-Files episode! How creepy is this?'" (TXF Season 6 DVD Special Features; "The Truth About Season 6")'' When it came time to film Jeffrey Spender's final scene in "One Son", actor William B. Davis (playing his usual role of the Cigarette Smoking Man) became upset, saying that he didn't want to shoot Owens and adding that he enjoyed working with the actor. On the other hand, Davis had no trouble with slapping Owens, in a scene of "Two Fathers" in which Spender is twice hit by the CSM. (The End and the Beginning: The Official Guide to ''The X-Files, volume 5'') Return Agent Spender (along with Alex Krycek) was included in early discussions of William B. Davis' script for the Season 7 episode "En Ami", shortly after Davis started conversing with Frank Spotnitz about the story, but Spender (as well as Krycek) was eliminated from the plot early in the episode's writing process. ( ) episode "William", Chris Owens wears makeup to show Spender's disfigured appearance and relaxes with co-stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.]] Three years after Jeffrey Spender had been written out of the series and actor Chris Owens had moved to Toronto, Owens received an unexpected phone call from David Duchovny, who said that The X-Files production crew was filming the series' finale as well as the second-to-last episode and that he wanted to bring Spender back for these two episodes. Duchovny reassured Owens that Spender's survival of the shooting years earlier could be explained away via the plot device of an alien injection but mentioned that the experience would not be fun for Owens, as he would be "under all that shit"; Owens did not realize what Duchovny meant until he got to the studio and personally saw the makeup for Spender's disfigured appearance, a sight that shocked Owens. (The Complete X-Files: Behind the Series, the Myths and the Movies) Regarding the design work that went into this makeup, director Kim Manners said, "That makeup job that Chris Owens endured probably took maybe six hours. Cheri Metcalfe, she would come up with these designs and sketches and bring them to myself and Chris Carter and [Spotnitz|Frank [Spotnitz~-start-125-stop~-start-103-stop]], and the three of us would pow-wow with Vince Gilligan and John Shiban, and most of those makeup decisions or any creative decision were really kind of done or decided as a team." ("The Truth" audio commentary) Spender, Jeffrey Spender, Jeffrey